Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Bunraku Movie Review

Bunraku is a movie that for the most part will only appeal to a set audience. There are some big names in this movie: Woody Harrelson, Josh Hartnett, Ron Perlmen, Demi Moore, and Gackt a famous Japanese Singer. The cast is surprisingly strong for this type of movie, and while it's not a terrible movie it's not a really good one as well. The plot is pretty simple, guns have been outlawed and gangs have taken over major cities. In one of said cities Perlman is the leader and his is cruel and basically everyone wants him dead. Hartnett and Gackt most team up to stop him. That's essentially it, but what's really interesting here is the martial arts segments and the whole visual style of the movie. Everything is over stylized and almost has a comic book feel to it. The action scenes are long and well worth the few scenes of story. Lets face it here, this movie would have been better without the whole story. I felt it actually took away from all the awesome fight scenes, which are also extremely bloody and brutal.

Perlman's character is both brutal and savage but you never really get the feeling that he could be the main antagonist. Hartnett and Gackt both do a decent job of filling in a lone ranger and samurai type, Moore is almost non-existent in this film which is odd but doesn't really take much away. Harrelson is pretty much like he always is in all his roles, witty at times bad ass at others he is just a fun actor to watch. Overall this is a average movie at best, not the best action movie I have seen but in my opinion way better then that bomb Cowboy's & Aliens.

6.5/10

+Awesome Fights
+Stylized Sets
-Been there done that story
-Music could have been a bit better